Saturday, September 20, 2008

Falling at the Speed of Liberalism

Just went through the September '06 arkive, and didn't find much that was worth a second look. Frankly, it would have taken less time to produce a new post. In selecting an oldie for the weekly Saturday reposting, I'm usually looking for something I can dialogue with from my new perspective. Plus, I like to weave in some contemporary events, add some fresh insults, and, most importantly, remove the frankly embarrassing, trite, or insufficiently pompous material that seemed arrogant enough at the time. So this one will have to do.

*****

Gricks may rise and Troysirs may fall (there being two sights for ever a picture) for in the byways of high improvidence that's what makes lifework leaving and the world's a cell for citters to cit in. --James Joyce, Finnegans Wake

There are two laws in history: the law of gravity, and the law of destiny. Left to their own devices, human beings will recapitulate the fall day by day, moment by moment, plummeting further and further from the Origin and Center. In order to find and attain one's destiny -- which is coextensive with the Origin and Center, on a personal level -- one must go against the collective winds which either drag one down with the rest, or, at the very least, pressure one to conform to the mentality of the horde. This was not as problematic in America's past, when the culture still valued and embodied the ideal of spiritual perfection in its diverse modalities.

[Here you go: here's a contemporary reference for you at American Thinker, The Drumbeat, by William Staneski. The drumbeat to which he refers is simply the dreary rhythm of man's fall, set to the monotonous bleat of leftist doctrine. It is hardly new, much less progressive:

"The drumbeat. It's always there. Day and night. Rain or shine. Winter or Summer. Sunday or Monday. It comes at you from every direction. It comes over the TV, the radio, at work, at school, in music, in the newspapers, from the politicians, in conversation with others, even in church. It wears you down. It robs you of the will to resist its message. Even short-lived victories, which stop it briefly, leave you with the knowledge that it will return; each minor victory bound to be lost to the redoubled efforts of this patient and persistent force. You can't escape it. It never stops. It never gives up. It never ends. It rains upon you from every possible angle, from every possible source."

Again, you have to imagine how difficult it was to resist this drumbeat back in the days before talk radio and other conservative media. When I was a liberal, I literally encountered no resistance to the leftist fall. There was nothing whatsoever to prevent me from jumping into the fire and going down with it into the ribbon of darkness. As I have said, I am not a bitter or backward looking man, but if I were, I could be pretty angry at how much of my life was lost bathing in the muddy water of liberalism. One reason I'm not angry is that I made the transition back to reality and truth before I was too old, and I have no right to complain about the way things turned out.

The downward tide of leftism is "tolerant, diverse, non-judgmental, non-discriminatory, egalitarian, politically correct, multicultural, globalist, and collectivist. It insists that there are no rights and wrongs, no moral absolutes. It turns everything upside down in its looking glass world. It denies the correctness of all that produced what our culture revered before the deconstruction of the world in accordance with the tenets of cultural Marxism.

"It denies God, human exceptionalism, and the soul. We are reduced to Darwinian animals floundering in an amoral sea of meaninglessness. It is a product of the nihilistic, existentialist philosophical movement, which went hand in hand with modern art, atonal music, scientific materialism and modern physics, and the generally discordant nature of the twentieth century."

I would express it differently, in that there is nothing about modernity that needed to end in the hell of leftist nihilism. Rather, I think the left is riding on the much deeper structure of the cosmic fall, or those descending winds that end in the Great Nothing, or what Schuon calls the possibility of the impossible. There is nothing whatsoever about modern science -- for example, quantum physics -- that necessarily leads to materialism. Quite the opposite. Likewise, modern art. None of the techniques of modern art are problematic in the hands of an elevated soul. Hollywood doesn't have to be sewer. Rock music doesn't have to be subhuman. I blame the people, not the medium. For every 1000 Madonnas or Bon Jovis, there's still one Van Morrison. In order to see the light, all you have to do is turn around.

Anyway, back to the old post.]

In this sense, the ancients were correct in being suspicious of time. At any given point in history, looked at in a certain way, things always look bleak and seem to be getting bleaker. Therefore, why not stop the whole colliderescape and get off? I would call that a pathological kind of conservatism, whereas real conservatism must be progressive. However, it all depends upon what one means by progress. For the true conservative, it means closer proximity and adequation to the Good, True, and Beautiful.

If one were to look at the way things stood in the world over the 500 years or so up to 1700, one “would not have been optimistic about the future of mankind." As historian Alan McFarlane notes in his The Riddle of the Modern World: Of Liberty, Wealth and Equality, nearly every civilization had reached some sort of "invisible barrier” that prevented further development: "The world and its roughly 500 million inhabitants seemed to have reached the limit to its potential to support human life.... Mankind seemed to be caught on a treadmill."

How did we ever get off that treadmill? It's an important question, because it is at the heart of our current conflict with Islam. They are still on that treadmill, and when one isn't progressing, one generally degenerates. Life is not static. Reduced to stasis, it becomes death. There is no middle ground. You cannot be "a little bit" alive or dead. Any evolving system must maintain disequilibrium by exchanging matter or information with the environment. The deepest problem with the Islamic world is that it is a closed system, both individually and collectively.

Prior to West's discovery of the dynamics of material and intellectual growth, life consisted of unrelenting uncertainty deprivation for all but a very few. In order to accomplish our breakthrough, “almost all the trends of the previous 2000 years had to be reversed.” Among other things, the monopolization of knowledge had to end, so that information and technology could be shared through widespread education and literacy. Furthermore, this couldn't be just any kind of education. Rather, it had to be a rational education in which one freely discovers universal truths that are not context-bound (i.e., merely cultural constructs which are often rooted in the management of anxiety rather than pursuit of truth).

There is an ontological divide between human beings that is mirrored in the gulf between left and right. There are those who say that what the world really needs is more love, more peace, more mutual understanding, more unity, more cuddly blah blah.

Nonsense. Nearly every serious problem in the world may be reduced to an absence of Truth. The pursuit of love and peace is perfectly admirable on a micro level in one's personal life. This is the meaning of “love your enemies," “turn the other cheek," "the meek shall inherit the earth," and all those other admirable sentiments.

But the Bible is not a suicide pact. On a macro level, the most important societal value by far is Truth. And not just any kind of Truth, but the truth of Truth and a method for discovering it. It has been said that it wasn't this or that particular invention that distinguished the West. Rather, it was the invention of invention, or the discovery of a method of discovery.

In the Islamic world -- as in liberal academia -- truth is received, not discovered. And most of what they receive is not only untrue, but cannot possibly be true. But because they have no tradition or means of independent verification, they are immersed in darkness and falsehood. In such a situation, the soul emaciates in the same way a body eventually consumes itself if deprived of food.

The other day, an acquaintance mentioned the left wing barking point one often hears, that if only the Israelis had settled someplace other than Israel, there would be no problems in the Middle East. That is beyond naive. Muslims do not object to Israel merely because it exists, but because they believe outrageous lies about Israel.

Likewise, for all those leftists who say that America is hated, that may be so, at least by the international left (and by the Americans who give a rat's ass what the international left thinks about us). But it is hated because the haters of the left believe things about us that are outrageously untrue, just as the left hates President Bush because they believe lies about him. Furthermore, they want to believe the lies, in order to legitimize the hatred. To know the truth would be to de-legitimize the hatred, and deny its channel of expression. Imagine what would happen to a Bill Maher or Keith Olbermann or Randi Rhodes or Markos Moulitsas if all that hatred were backed up inside them. Thus, they have every motivation for believing lies. It keeps them insanely sane, so to speak.

By being sensitive to Muslim feelings for decades, we have essentially honored their delusional lies. In the spirit of a deeply illiberal multiculturalism, we have allowed these lies to take their place alongside the truth as a coequal partner. Light shall no longer shine in the dark, but shall dialogue with it, man to imam. The Pope let slip a banal truth about the sordid history of Islam, and look what happened. The entitled liars bristled in defense of their primordial lie, a lie which has been further enshrined by that half of the postmodern world which regards truth as relative and arbitrary. In so doing, they have simply allowed these tyrannical monsters to elevate their truth (which is a lie) to a false absolute.

For, although they are the benefecearies of liberal academics who teach the false absolute that truth doesn't exist, they don't really believe that for a second. Rather, they simply use the means of leftist relativism to advance their own absolute end of religious totalitarianism. For when truth is denied, raw power fills the vacuum, destroying love and everything else in its wake.

31 comments:

"The other day, an acquaintance mentioned the left wing barking point one often hears, that if only the Israelis had settled someplace other than Israel, there would be no problems in the Middle East."

Back in June, I was driving to San Diego close to midnight to pick up DH from a fishing trip. With me were eldest niece, who is in college, and a sister-in-law. At one point, eldest niece started talking about Israel (there's a Palestinian student in one of her classes), and she made the bitter and rather shocking statement that she was certain that, given the chance, the Israelis would wipe the Palestinians off the map. It had been a long day, and I was trying hard to focus on the road, so unfortunately my mental filters weren't working and I started arguing with her (and made the mistake of saying "you're young..." - really pissed her off). Utterly pointless, since she's clearly drunk the Kool-aid (which is hard to see - she's a bright kid, and used to be at least a little conservative). SIL quickly stepped in, and we were both laughing again in a couple of minutes.

I keep reminding myself that DH and I were both leftists when we were her age, but like you said, it's tougher to swallow these days, when there are other sources of information. When I was young, I didn't know anybody who thought differently, at least not openly. She wants to be a doctor. I'm hoping that, if nothing else, the process of dealing with our current healthcare system will bring her back around, but only time will tell.

"Likewise, for all those leftists who say that America is hated, that may be so, at least by the international left (and by the Americans who give a rat's ass what the international left thinks about us). But it is hated because the haters of the left believe things about us that are outrageously untrue, just as the left hates President Bush because they believe lies about him. Furthermore, they want to believe the lies, in order to legitimize the hatred. To know the truth would be to de-legitimize the hatred, and deny its channel of expression. Imagine what would happen to a Bill Maher or Keith Olbermann or Randi Rhodes or Markos Moulitsas if all that hatred were backed up inside them. Thus, they have every motivation for believing lies. It keeps them insanely sane, so to speak."

What hypocrisy. Have you not even noticed the amount of hatred for Obama spewed around here? And then you say people believe lies. I mean I read how this economy is great just last week, and people are praising Bush for it, then this last Monday happens, and suddenly all is forgotten. If Bush was so influential to a good economy, why doesn't he pop up when its bad? Believing lies about Bush comes from both directions, but in general he is a bad president, not because he is the cause of all the problems, but because he hasn't come up with a working solution. How many problems are there that haven't been solved that have started while he was in office? I can't think of a major one, Katrina, Justice department, Iraq. These are all issues being pushed on to future presidents.

And then exactly what constitutes a lie against Bush btw? The fact that he went to war on flimsy intelligence that turned out not to be true(I mean youtube the video where Bush says he "believes" they had WMDs). The people who hate him for going to war didn't want war in the first place, but they hate him for going to war on essentially a hunch that didn't turn out to be true. So again I ask what specific lies the left believes? Because you can't justify Bush is a good president based on all the current situations. I understand Congress is more so to blame, but the president has enough power on his own to keep congress in check, but Bush hasn't done that. He's been as freely inconsiderate of circumstances and he has the most influence over Washington, whether or not he has the power to change things directly by himself.

Another incoherent brain damaged rant by Brother Deepak. With his economic acumen, perhaps Obama will name him Secretary of the Treasury, so that we can enjoy a "quantum leap" in financial consciousness.

"There are two laws in history: the law of gravity, and the law of destiny."

I'm currently working my way through "The Crook and the Flail" in the Perry. I understand and agree with the importance of hierarchies as he discusses them, yet I can't help thinking there's something slightly off in his conclusions. I don't think he gives enough credit to the American system, especially after reading Whittle's essay yesterday. (And I realize that Whittle, at least in Trinity, seems to be purely secular and therefore talking mainly about a horizontal exceptionalism, but can it really be exceptionalism if there's no vertical component?). Anyway, I'm wondering if you or Walt (or anyone else who's read it) have any thoughts on this chapter?

Good thing Deepak sticks "with what my mother told me and try to keep my gains as well-gotten as I can." Unlike those other frauds who enrich themselves by peddling bogus spirituality to the benighted masses.

Haven't gotten to that chapter yet, but the traditionalists are almost all European type conservatives and not American conservatives, a very different beast. In other words, like us, they despise the left, but they also have big problems with conservative liberalism, as it can descend into a tyranny of the stupid -- which is precisely what the demagogic left facilitates. America is meant to be a republic, which combines elements of hierarchy and populism.

Thanks, Bob - it helps to actually see where he's coming from. He does discuss the tyranny of the stupid. And I agree, I just don't think it quite describes America. Which makes sense, since he's not American.

“the individualistic age of human society comes as a result of the corruption and failure of the conventional, as a revolt against the reign of the petrified typal figure.” He illustrates the occurrence of this stage in Europe beginning with its revolt of reason against the Church and fixed authority and its continuation and blossoming with the growth of scientific inquiry. Through science, a new basis of principles and laws could be discovered and established that were open to scrutiny and logical analysis and reasoning. There were also established the democratic ideals that all individuals had the right to develop to the full stature of their capabilities, and that the individual was not simply a social unit with a social function, but also had unique individual needs, possibilities, and tendencies which should be allowed freedom and opportunity for development. As a part of the revolt against traditional authority, there developed in some regions another intellectual philosophy and political movement, apparently in contradiction to individualism, of the supremacy of the society as a whole over the individual. Sri Aurobindo also analyses the strengths and limitations of this viewpoint, and its relations and opposition to the democratic ideal."

"The individualistic age culminates in a new intellectual foundation and development in all the spheres of life, but this rational view of the world and the self can only go so far, it cannot reach into the depths of the being. Nevertheless, its questioning spirit, its search for truth leads it beyond its own capabilities, leads it to search for a deeper foundation and a more complete understanding of the mysteries and subtleties of self and world. The subjective age begins when society begins to search for the deeper truths of its existence below the surfaces which the reason has explored and explained in an ordered, but limited sense."

Yep, I definitely have to agree with Aurobindo, then. Especially given that, in a society such as Perry idealizes, I probably literally could not exist. That's one of those sticking points where people who rail against the fruits of modern Western (and specifically American) culture tend to lose me.

You just can't make me believe that all the things which led to me and millions of other impossible (at any other time and place in the entire history of mankind) Americans being conceived and surviving to a healthy adulthood (there to become extreme seekers after Truth, Beauty and Goodness in an equally impossible manner) are intrinsically wrong.

Next time you have a chat with your eldest niece re: Israeli/Palestinian relations, please inform her that Israel "has the chance" to wipe the Palestinians off the face of the earth virtually 24/7/365. It would take the Isralis all of a week, probably less, to do so.

Then ask your niece: if the situation were reversed and the Palestinians held the balance of military power, would they restrain themselves from wiping Israel off the face of the earth?

"At any given point in history, looked at in a certain way, things always look bleak and seem to be getting bleaker."

The yogin should take care not to indulge in pessimism; it is a wrong movement. Trust in the Supreme and the eventual victory of Spirit is the correct attitude. Therefore, a cheerful optimism is at all times appropriate.

Attitudes/emotions that deviate from optimism need to be checked for utility in the Sadhana. Nine times of ten, they are wasted energy.

Strong action does not require pessimism to energize it, so work is not advanced by a negative attitude anyway. It is literally useless.

However, on the other hand, accurate assessments are essential. If a system of government is broken and needs to be toppled, for instance, do so wihout indulging in pessimism first. Cheerfully take out the guns; even war can be done in that spirit.

Will, I tried that. But to an invincible college student, I was obviously getting my news from the wrong sources (and yes, she actually said that). There is no arguing with her on this; she knows an honest-to-goodness Palestinian, so she thinks she understands the conflict. I think we both realized that, on political issues, we just don't see eye-to-eye. We can either continue arguing about it (which, really, would just result in me as the elder becoming known as the family frootloop. They'd continue to be nice, but it would be a "walking on eggshells" kind of politeness. Not good.), or we can agree to disagree and remember that we love each other. I've known her since she was seven. It's just not worth the rift. For now, I'll simply pray that eventually, probably after college, she'll have a better grasp of reality. It happened for DH and I, so it's not impossible.

"For, although they are the benefecearies of liberal academics who teach the false absolute that truth doesn't exist, they don't really believe that for a second...."

(Reminds me of a leftie friend who was trying to explain to my son how the table wasn't really hard or solid, but mostly empty space. When I offered to slam his face into it... somehow he lost his convictions.)

"...Rather, they simply use the means of leftist relativism to advance their own absolute end of religious totalitarianism. For when truth is denied, raw power fills the vacuum, destroying love and everything else in its wake."

Pretty well sums it up.

Julie, if you're not too bothered by your niece's head exploding, have her watch this, and maybe offer to read any rebuttal she composes, as long as it's accompanied with verifiable fact checking:

"For when truth is denied, raw power fills the vacuum, destroying love and everything else in its wake."

I just finished reading an excellent paper by Dr. Graham Walker called "The Pathology of the Intellect," in which he said some similar things.

"What is it about knowledge that puffeth up, as First Corinthians chapter 8 tells us? Why is there a divide between love and knowledge? If God created everything and remains involved in sustaining his creation, then it follows that the truth about some things he has made is not in conflict with the truth about other things he has made, or in conflict with the truth about himself."

"There is something about the activity of acquiring erudition which can make people *worse* off morally and spiritually even while it improves their store of knowledge."

"...For intellectual activity confers a kind of power and preeminence on its practitioners. The Learned, after all, describe the world to us, and interpret its meaning to us, using words and symbols to fashion a condensed picture of reality. ...Now having jurisdiction over word-pictures of reality is not the same thing as having jurisdiction over reality. But for a human heart that craves power, it's the next best thing."

"...Now the world and all that is in it, visible and invisible, is naturally an object of human wonderment. The mind filled with true wonder forgets itself and seeks to understand. But there is a perennial temptation to turn one's attention away from reality itself and instead toward one's own mental construction of reality. It is the temptation to prefer the contrivance of the mind to that which is. It is the temptation, at worst, to revel in the power of one's own intellect. I call this phenomenon intellectual backsliding--or more precisely, backsliding from being."

"...It's not that desire is at odds with truth. It's that *false* desire is at odds with *true* desire, and so garbles our mental grasp of truth. ...No--the constitutive struggle of the intellectual life is not between emotion and reason [Greek mode of thought], nor between desire and self-extinction [rarefied Buddhism]. It is between the love of public truth and the love of private advantage, between the love of righteousness and the love of sin, and ultimately between love for God and love of the deified self. We are not beings whose nature can be shorn of desire... ...We *will* love, either one thing or another. We *will* be powered by desire, either deformative or ennobling. We cannot master desire in the sense of setting it aside. But, amazingly, we can choose which desire will master us, and reason can help us to choose rightly. ...Our proper and natural goal is not to get beyond the grip of love, but to love Him who loves us with an everlasting love."

I hope that Gagdad is not actually championing conservatives but rather conservative principles and . Because no matter what you say an adminstration that "borrows" a trillion to bail out corrupt banks is not conservative, that be socialism or some other strain of leftism.

Frankly I see Bob as trying to resurect an era that is dead, nostalgia for a christian conservatives with heart and soul. You know the kind of people we all remember our humble hardworking grandparents to be.

As much as I like those memories I just don't see that time ever coming back, not that way. In any case I just don't feel any goodness radiating from either parties. Time to let the good and beautiful grow wherever it can, right or left.

Per that interesting piece about the loathsome Mather and the rise of irrationalist rationalism, here's a bit from G.K Chesterton, whose deathless quote about belief rounds out that WSJ article. It's priest-detective Father Brown, talking about a person who believed that a dog's howling was the harbinger of a murder:

"The dog could almost have told you the story, if he could talk," said the priest. "All I complain of is that because he couldn't talk, you made up his story for him, and made him talk with the tongues of men and angels. It's part of something I've noticed more and more in the modern world, appearing in all sorts of newspaper rumors and conversational catch-words; something that's arbitrary without being authoritative. People readily swallow the untested claims of this, that, or the other. It's drowning all your old rationalism and scepticism, it's coming in like a sea; and the name of it is superstition." He stood up abruptly, his face heavy with a sort of frown, and went on talking almost as if he were alone. "It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense, and can't see things as they are. Anything that anybody talks about, and says there's a good deal in it, extends itself indefinitely like a, vista in a nightmare. And a dog is an omen and a cat is a mystery and a pig is a mascot and a beetle is a scarab, calling up all the menagerie of polytheism from Egypt and old India; Dog Anubis and great green-eyed Pasht and all the holy howling Bulls of Bashan; reeling back to the bestial gods of the beginning, escaping into elephants and snakes and crocodiles; and all because you are frightened of four words: 'He was made Man."'

"It's the first effect of not believing in God that you lose your common sense..."

That is so true! Just try debating with any atheist, who declares one thing "just" and another "unjust" in a total *reversal* of justice, and all on the basis of, "Because I am my own god, and I say so"--since he hasn't any other basis at all.

Julie,Don’t listen to Will. Will’s got facts and facts won’t do. Unless…you use the right kinds of facts. Let’s face it, eldest niece and my coworkers have a right to believe whatever they enjoy. But they don’t have a right to cancel out our votes. (I don’t think) Anyway, here’s what I would do. I’d hypnoti...I mean, tell eldest niece that you read in the NY Times that Palin eats her peas one at a time (gasp) Obama will be up by 20 and *snap* (your fingers) son of a gun you just remembered that years ago at the lemonade stand you’d both decided to only vote for winners. What were you thinking (slap your forehead) Heck, she doesn’t even need to vote at all, ‘cause she can count on you. Mission accomplished.Think it won’t work? Just repeat these magic words, “If it’s in the Times, it’s in the bag."

What About Bob?

Who spirals down the celestial firepole on wings of slack, seizes the wheel of the cosmic bus, and embarks upin a bewilderness adventure of higher nondoodling? Who, haloed be his gnome, loiters on the threshold of the transdimensional doorway, looking for handouts from Petey? Who, with his doppelgägster and testy snideprick, Cousin Dupree, wields the pliers and blowtorch of fine insultainment for the ridicure of assouls? Who is the gentleman loaffeur who yoinks the sword from the stoned philosopher and shoves it in the breadbasket of metaphysical ignorance and tenure? Whose New Testavus for the Restavus blows the locked doors of the empyrean off their rusty old hinges and sheds a beam of intense darkness on the world enigma? Who is the Biggest Fakir of the Vertical Church of God Knows What, channeling the roaring torrent of 〇 into the feeble stream of cyberspace? Who is the masked pandit who lobs the first water balloon out the motel window at the annual Raccoon convention? Who is your nonlocal partner in disorganized crimethink? Shut your mouth! But I'm talkin' about bʘb! Then we can dig it!

Goround ZerO:

Search and Ye Never Knows What Ye Might Find:

The Cosmic Area Rug:

The empty center is Beyond-Being. The circles are dimensions of Being. Your life is a path for the Spirit to pass from periphery to center. Thoughts and choices -- truth and virtue -- are the paving stones.

Only Error is Transmitted:

Buck Mulligan, Official Mascot

Official Sponsor of the Kosmic Kit Scouts, Laniakea Supercluster Chapter

Fuck You: War

Late last night, in search of light, I watched a ball of fire streak across the midnight sky. I watched it glow, then grow, then shrink, then sink into the silhouette of morning. As I watched it die, I said, ‘Hey, I’ve got a lot in common with that light.’ That’s right. I’m alive with the fire of my life, which streaks across my span of time and is seen by those who lift their eyes in search of light to help them though the long, dark night. --Nilsson

We see that yesterday is our birthday, today is our life, and tomorrow we are gone. So we have just one day to learn all we need to know, and that day is today. --Petey